Where dividends look secure, demand has pushed prices up – so the yield on newly invested money has gone down. With the backdrop for shares uncertain, most investors would be content to know merely that their modest income will be maintained and their capital protected from losses.

Unfortunately, such assurances never exist in the stock market. There is, however, a way to achieve these things from investing in companies: by lending to them via bonds, rather than buying a stake in them through shares.